Last Visit
by mentalsunflower
Summary: MAJOR AWE SPOILERS! Two people, torn apart by fate, get one last visit before time catches up with them...


**A/N: **I can't put into words how much I loved this movie. The movie was tragic and heart-breaking in its ending, but it's the part of the movie that has captured my heart the most. I love it, love it all, and even though while writing this fanfiction I cried like a baby, I am still in awe of the twist it had. Just… oh my _God._

**Disclaimer: **Gore Verbinski, Ted and Terry, everyone... I love you for creating this masterpiece.

**Last Visit **

It's their last visit, and Will can feel it. Things haven't been the same since the last time he stepped on land. As his boot squishes into the dark sand of the shore, Will's gaze flickers across the landscape for Elizabeth.

He sees her before she sees him, and he knows it. Her eyesight is leaving her, as well as her hearing. But every ten years she still comes to stand at this exact spot.

Will walks toward her, softly. He takes this time to look at her face, to feel the tears welling in the corners of his eyes. There is nothing about her that doesn't make him sad anymore.

She is elderly now, and looks much older than the last time he saw his love. Her hair, once long and luscious now lies limply against her scalp, white and sparse. Her face is no longer smooth, but overlapping with wrinkles of age and time. Elizabeth's eyes are slightly glazed over, but there is still some spark in this old woman's heart.

"Will?" she asks, and the voice breaks his heart, stops him in his tracks. He is still young, still strong and able and quick. Seeing the old woman that is Elizabeth hobble toward him, slipping lightly in the sand as she sticks her cane into the ground to steady herself, forces him to look away.

This is their last visit, and although Will is able to ferry dead souls to peace, able to breathe underwater and live without a heart beating in his chest, there is nothing he can do to stop time.

"Yes, Elizabeth, I'm here," he chokes out, and does a good job of masking the worry in his voice, of smoothing over the hitch in his words. He hastily wipes at his eyes before gripping her in a light embrace. He can feel her stiff body—shortened by age—relax under his arms.

"Oh Will, this is perfect," she murmurs into his chest, and he has to gaze up at the sky because looking at her is too difficult. "But I feel so strange, being… how old I am."

Will knows she can feel his tension, and hugs her closer. "Elizabeth, I will always love you. You must know that. Nothing, not even time, can change that."

"You make my heart beat as if I was a young girl again," she sniffs with a light giggle, and Will realizes he's not the only one crying. "But you know as well I do that this has to be our…"

She pulls away. Will pulls away. Neither of them wants to say it.

_Last visit._

It is too painful to look at her, but Will can't help it because this is the last time he will be able to hold the same Elizabeth, to talk to the girl who captured his heart on board the ship that fished him out of the ocean. In ten years, she will be gone. Will won't be.

"I love you," he whispers fiercely, but he doesn't know if she can hear him anymore. "I love you!" he repeats again, this time his voice wobbling, unrestrained from his emotions.

A shrivelled hand cups his cheek; Will can't believe it's the same woman. "I can always hear you Will, no matter what," she whispers softly up at him. "When you're with me, everything is perfectly clear."

Will breaks down at these words, sobbing into her shoulder as he slides into the sand. This is their last visit.

--

Ten years later, Will steps onto the same shore, fearing the worst.

There is no old woman waiting for him.

But he sees something where she would normally be standing. A small white cross made from wood. He wobbles over, horrified and yet placated by it. She is here, after all.

"I suppose _this _is our last visit," he murmurs, caressing the wood of the cross. "Good-bye, Elizabeth."

He falls asleep in the sand next to the grave, too afraid to leave it, knowing he will never come back.


End file.
